


Tilt A Whirl

by Unforgotten



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) - Alternate 2012 Timeline, Gen, Multiverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 21:49:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18646771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unforgotten/pseuds/Unforgotten
Summary: "I don't know how you didn't see this coming," Thor said from his cell, across the aisle from Loki's own.FollowsChaos Theory





	Tilt A Whirl

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't really plan to write any more in this AU, but then this fic happened. If I write a third one, I'll make it a series. Even if I do write more, I don't intend to write a plotty longfic or anything, since I'm not really interested in doing that - so it'll just be ficlets about the moments that interest me, for various characters (ie if I write a third one...it's probably going to be about the WS getting his alt timeline memories and kicking Hydra's ass, or something). 
> 
> That said, if anyone else wants to pick up this doubled memories concept and do something with it, feel free. I would LOVE to read other takes on it!!

"I don't know how you didn't see this coming," Thor said from his cell, across the aisle from Loki's own.

"How didn't you?" Loki countered. "He's your father."

" _Our_ father." But Thor's objection was lackluster, in the way Loki already knew meant he, too, was torn; that he, too, was hearing the echoes _("You sound like him.")_ of the years they had and hadn't lived. Loki wasn't the only one who'd been somewhat disillusioned, just lately and a long way from here.

Odin had been less than understanding upon their return to Asgard. Never mind if several hundred others had gone to him and said they remembered the same things, too...and much more clearly than the wisps of memory that seemed to have been granted to the rest of the population (or, Loki suspected, to Odin himself; he'd never been prone to little twitches of any kind, and he'd shaken his head slightly every few seconds during the audiences they'd had). Never mind if Heimdall himself had backed them, lending a credence to their argument that could not have been obtained elsewhere. No, the moment Odin had learned it had been a mischief, he'd decided it was a falsehood as well. Thor hadn't helped by mentioning the statue, and then the play, in the apparent attempt to convince Odin that Loki had been a benevolent dictator, but which only resulting in confusing matters even more. Off they'd gone to the dungeon, the both of them: Loki for this mischief in addition to his attempted conquest of Midgard, and Thor for having fallen victim to his glamour.

For a time, there was silence, anything but companionable. Loki could feel Thor's gaze, and ignored it.

Finally, Thor said, "Brother, tell me truly: Was this your doing?"

Loki sighed and rolled his eyes. "Yes. Obviously."

"...I mean, did the things I've experienced in these last few days really happen to some version of us? Or is this a another trick, as Father thinks?"

Half of Loki was tempted to sneer, or deflect. The other half of him thought they were due for this; they hadn't had more than a few moments for this sort of discussion after Asgard burned. (For the first time, he wondered if perhaps Thanos had been waiting for such an event all along, after the Tesseract had made its way to Odin's vault. How else could he have been poised to strike so _soon_ after they'd departed?)

In the end, he split the difference.

"Who cares what Odin thinks?" he said, followed by: "If this were one of my tricks, I'd hardly have killed myself in the visions. I'd be much more likely to kill you, then crown myself king."

"...You did crown yourself king. Not as yourself, of course, but still."

"There is that," Loki had to admit.

"You saved our people, then died a hero. I wept on-- _over_ your body. I mourned you for years. It was terrible. Especially since I'd already mourned you those other times."

"It is suspicious." Loki said it carefully, lest the sharpness in his chest and his sudden inability to take a full breath indicate anything to Thor but Loki's newfound ability to summon up a heart attack so he would not be forced to suffer through the remainder of this conversation. "Very well, I admit it: I made it all up. Happy?"

"No." It did not seem Thor had yet finished with all his mourning, for his eyes were now red, and his voice rough. "I don't believe you."

"But which me? Which story is the false one? What a dreadful riddle you've created for yourself."

"Loki."

Half of Loki wished to continue prodding Thor, to see what he would do if tested to his limits when he could neither leave nor smash someone with Mjolnir. The other half of him was the half that won; the half that seemed to be winning a greater and greater percentage of the time, as if it thought it had more right to be here than the half of him whose reality this was.

Thor didn't even sound all that angry, though he had often in the first few days. Perhaps he, too, was in the process of being subsumed.

"The visions are true ones," Loki said. "But they're not of _us_. They're who we would have been, if our course had not been altered."

This was the truth, but felt more false than anything Thor or even Odin had accused him of. Knowing these memories were not quite his own did not keep him from feeling as if they were. Knowing it didn't keep him from feeling at odd moments as if all of this would surely fade away again, to be replaced by carnage all around, and the new/old enemy in front of him, with his hand closing around Loki's throat...

He wasn't sure if it was better or worse than the terror that came in other odd moments: the certainty that Thanos would find him, one day, and make him pay and pay and pay again for his failure. It was vexing, that the thing could have already happened to one version of him, and he could _know it_ , and yet still fear it as if it remained an unknown.

"Tell me, brother," Loki said. "What happened after my alter ego's death?"

The impressions he'd received from the Stone had been murky and confused to begin with. Once he'd received his own memories in their entirety, it had driven out the rest, everything that hadn't belonged to him.

Already sitting in a chair, Loki leaned forward, to hear whatever Thor would say; meanwhile, the illusion of him that Thor could see reclined back in the bed, crossing his ankles and lacing his fingers behind his head.

The story Thor told was a long one, filled with chance meetings with people Loki didn't care about, and quests that sounded rather pointless. Outside of the Infinity Stones and the occasional reference to Thanos (which made Loki's balls try to writhe up into his belly, even as his illusion-self rolled his eyes or otherwise effected a lack of concern), it didn't seem to have much to do with Loki until Thor said, "And so, even though I was the one to kill Thanos, I had still failed."

"I never doubted you would." It was not Loki's first interjection, but neither half of him disagreed on it being his cleverest. "Do go on."

"We settled on Midgard, but although our people needed me, I had given up. I fell deeper and deeper into my despair for the next five years."

"--I was dead for five _years_?"

"Well, yes. How long did you want to be dead for?"

"Only when and for as long as I wish to be. Now, tell me more about this despair."

But Loki must have tipped his hand, for when Thor's story continued, it was about the actions that had been taken to defeat the Thanos of that other reality, the ventures through time that had brought back half the universe.

"Half the universe, but not me." For if his other self had been brought back by the Stones, Loki would have seen some sign of it in the Tesseract's depths. That, or the memory of being renewed would have been the last one, instead of what he carried now.

Thor winced. "Well, it couldn't be done."

"Naturally."

"Look, Heimdall wasn't brought back, either. Or the hundred Asgardians Thanos and his forces slaughtered in front of us. It's not as if it were personal. Anyway, you're here now. We both are. And we didn't actually experience any of it, according to you. So there's no need to talk about it, or anyone's failings, anymore."

Loki was certain he had still been personal to the Hulk, but didn't say so; needling Thor had been amusing when it was about his shortcomings, but tasted more like ashes by far when it was about Loki's own fate.

"Enough about the past," he said. "What are we going to do about the future?"

"It depends. How certain are you Thanos is gone from our reality?"

"Completely certain," Loki said. It was the one thing that had come through as clearly as the other half of his memories, perhaps because it was one of the concerns closest to his heart, but more likely because Thanos had been the master of the Stones for a time, and their fates knew his.

"Well, then, I think we should break out of here and figure the rest out later. We can't change anything from here."

Loki was about to ask how Thor thought they were going to do that, when another voice came from the hall, out of sight of either of their cells:

"No, we can't."

Into view came Heimdall, dressed differently than he'd been a few hours ago. Dressed for stealth.

"We are not the only beings in the galaxy who remember," he said, and the barrier of Thor's cell dissipated. "No few of Asgard's enemies remember its demise. Singly, it would matter less, but if they should band together...we have a great deal of work to do, my king."

"...King? Heimdall, I'm not the king yet."

"He really isn't," Loki helped. "Free me, as well, why don't you?"

He expected Heimdall to look to Thor for permission, and for what happened next to be humiliating, if the two of them didn't decide to leave him here entirely. Instead, Heimdall looked at him, that dry expression reserved for princes who had overlooked the obvious...and Loki realized the barrier to his own cell had already come down. Perhaps even at the same moment as Thor's.

"We must hurry," Heimdall said, and headed back the way he'd come. Thor and Loki fell into step behind him.

On their way out, Loki said, "Brother, tell Heimdall the tale of how you failed. He missed it after you got him killed."

" _You_ got him killed."

"Well, then, tell him about how you gave up. All the details, this time. I promise not to listen."

"Shut up if you don't want to be gagged again," Thor said, sounding much more like himself now than he had while they were sitting in their cells. Then, to Heimdall: "We're going to need reinforcements."

"Yes," Heimdall said.

On their way out of the palace, Loki considered splitting off from the group, leaving an illusion to go along with them so he'd know what was happening. One half of him wanted to do it and find his way back to the Space Stone, since he obviously hadn't been thinking straight when he'd left it behind; the other half of him thought wistfully of the days when he'd had his statue, and his plays, and of how relaxing it had all been, comparative to every other era of his life. Neither half was entirely certain why he didn't. Both were perplexed by the feeling whose origin he couldn't seem to pinpoint: the feeling that he'd do best to follow Thor, no matter what happened next, or how likely he was to be slaughtered again, and by someone new, this time.

"Where are we going?" he asked, the better to distract himself from the thought that the feeling might actually be brotherly affection, or even fealty, both of which had always seemed to him to be one-way arrows that should point at him instead of away.

"Sakaar," Heimdall and Thor said together.

"To pick up Val," Thor said, as if that hadn't been completely obvious the moment it had come up. "If she's still there."

"You mean if she's there _yet_. And what are we going to do if she doesn't remember us?"

"She is and she does," Heimdall said, and gestured for silence as they came to the next corner.

A few minutes later, Loki said, with dawning horror, "What are we going to do if the _Grandmaster_ remembers?"

"He does, as well."

"We'll figure it out when we get there," Thor said, and put his hand out for Mjolnir, which was surely conducive to the sneaking they were trying to do.

Loki sighed. "I suppose we'll have to."

More tempted than ever to slip away, Loki was more certain than before that he wasn't going to. He told himself it was because he wanted to know what would happen, to witness more of how he'd changed things, the ripples that seemed as if they might make their future unrecognizable compared to the one they'd had in a reality far from their own. It wasn't an untruth, at least not entirely; it really was a part of the reason, after all, even if it wasn't the whole.


End file.
